Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Chocolate for breakfast

Yep, we had chocolate for breakfast this morning and I am completely guilt free! Ok, so it wasn't just straight chocolate, we had banana spice muffins with mini chocolate chips in them. Want to know the whole scoop on why I don't have any guilt? There was a lot of hidden nutrition in our breakfast this morning!

Secrets revealed:

Banana spice muffins:

Made with fresh milled flour. This adds about 23 more nutrients than regular all-purpose flour.

I used sucanat rather than white or brown sugar. The recipe called for 3/4 cup of each, so I just put in 1 1/2 cups of sucanat.

I accidently left out the eggs. That makes them lower in cholesterol, right?

Smoothies:

3 handfuls of spinach

1 c raw milk

about 1 cup yogurt

handful frozen strawberries

handful frozen pineapple

banana

1-2 T raw honey

The littles had no idea they were getting so many nutrients in their tasty breakfast. They have been very adverse to just about everything besides bread and fruit. Dinner is a constant battle to just eat the tiny bit of food that I put on their plates. And veggies, let's not go there! I have been semi-desperate to get something besides sugar into their little bodies. A while ago a friend posted about green smoothies, so I started putting spinach in ours. You can't even taste it! My littles don't know what a "regular" smoothie should look like, so they don't have any trouble with green and they slurp it down. To make our smoothies a little more fun I saved the huge straws from P.anera Bread, cut two of them in half and they are the perfect size for our I.KEA smoothie cups!

Another friend recently loaned and taught me how to use her juicer. I may seem as though I am from the dark ages, but I had never heard of juicing before. So I was a little nervous. L juices only veggies for her family. Everyone drinks 1/4 cup or more each morning and then she doesn't have to stress over them not finishing their veggies later in the day. Yesterday I snuck this one in on my littles. I have to admit that I was very nervous about juicing. I didn't have a recipe to start with and I just couldn't imagine the flavors and what they would taste like together. I had the juicer sitting on my counter for over a week before I tried it, the result wasn't too bad though. The tip L gave me was "If you don't like the flavor, add another apple." OK, so here's what I did:

- 7 carrots

- 1 apple

- 3 radishes

All L gave me to go on was that she uses carrots and whatever other veggies she wants. I never eat radishes, so for some reason I thought this would be a great way to get their nutrients into my body. I couldn't taste them at all. I think I'll use more next time though since three radishes equaled about .6 radish per person. I don't think that's a serving! :) Later yesterday I found some recipes and I am really excited to try one of them tomorrow.

My plan (written in pencil) is to juice on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and to make smoothies Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This may change to all juicing as cooler weather comes. We won't always have the smoothies with breakfast, but they are a great way to fill our bellies and have an energy boost.

Another food adventure I plan to take soon is these Lactation cookies. Have you ever heard of them? I was checking out at E.vermans on Sunday, wearing CJ in my sling, and the lady in front of me asked if I was nursing and if I'd ever heard of these cookies. I looked them up that evening and I will be picking up the ingredients the next time I am shopping. I have had to work to keep my milk supply up with the last three from about 5 months on, I'll keep you posted on if they work or not!

L told me about juicing too. I can only get carbs and raisins (not even a variety of fruits) into Ethan. No veggies, except what I sneak into his oatmeal and PB (pureed veggies). I also make healthy muffins. How are your kids liking it now that you've been doing it longer?

I'm going to try the green smoothie, although he usually won't drink much of that either.

As a note of encouragement, my brother ate only cheese toasts, breakfast bars, and chicken fingers (plus a variety of desserts) for at least 12 years. He is now a very health-conscious Army pilot. :)